It’s here. Finally. Gmail now supports IMAP. Internet Message Access Protocol. IMAP is cool because as you work with your email, moving it to folders, reading it, deleting it, etc. your actions are synced with the mail server. This way if you access the mail again from a different computer you will have everything in the last place you left it and you don’t have to remember what you did last time. Much more advanced them simple POP email.

My favorite client for IMAP is Mozilla Thunderbird. Not just any Thunderbird, Thunderbird Portable Edition. This allows me to keep my copy of Thunderbird on a USB stick and take it, and all of its detailed settings, with me where ever I go.

The things I’m going to show you here will work whether you use the portable edition or not. Google is rolling out IMAP slowly so if you don’t see it right away you will shortly. I’m not going to ‘reinvent the wheel’, Google already provides instructions on how to set up Thunderbird with IMAP.

Getting the most of out Gmail IMAP and Thunderbird

When you set up IMAP in Thunderbird and retrieve your mail for the first time, Thunderbird will create a folder structure with the basic Gmail folders and folders representing all your Gmail tags.

NOTE: When I set mine up I called the account, within Thunderbird, Gmail IMAP. You will see this in screen shots throughout. You may have called yours something different.

Make sure Sent and Draft mail is available synched to your Gmail from Thunderbird

For Sent:

Click the Copies and Folders entry on the left

Set “When sending messages, automatically:” to put the outgoing message in your Gmail sent folder by checking “Place copy in”

Select Other

Navigate to your Account Name –> Gmail –> Sent Mail

For Drafts:

Under Drafts and Templates select Other

Navigate to your Account Name –> Gmail –> Drafts

Enable Offline Access

If you want access to your email offline, click the Offline & Disk Space entry on the left

Select “Make the messages in my inbox available when I am working offline”

If you want other folders available when you are offline, click the button ‘Select Folders for Offline Use’. You will then be able to select your other Gmail tags/folders.

Under Disk Space you can select how to manage these offline files. I chose to have mine deleted after 7 days. I left the selection for read messages unchecked because most often it is something I recently read that I might need again when I can’t connect to the net.

Enable Junk/Spam Sync

Click the Junk Settings selection on the left

Ensure the following are checked

Enable adaptive junk mail controls for this account

Do not mark mail as junk if sender if in your Personal Address book

Move new Junk Messages to select Other

Navigate to your Account Name –> Gmail –> Spam

Some Tips on how functions map between Thunderbird and Gmail

Open a message = Mark a message as read

Flag a message = Apply a star to the message

Move a message to a folder = Apply a label to the message

Create a folder = Create a label

Move a message to [Gmail]/Spam = Report a message as spam

Move a message to [Gmail]/Trash = Move a message to Trash

Send a message = Store message in Sent Mail

Delete a message in inbox = Remove the message from inbox

Delete a message from a folder = Remove that label from the message

Delete a message from [Gmail]/Spam or [Gmail]/Trash = Delete the message permanently

Note: If you want to Archive a message, or several selected messages, drag it to the [Gmail]/All Mail folder

WordPress 2.3.1 is now available. 2.3.1 is a bug-fix and security release for the 2.3 series. There are several bug fixes. One nice addition is the categories integrate even better with Windows Live Writer.

The upgrade was straight forward as usual. Get the latest Akismet plugin as well.